I lived! I lived! I wasn't sure I would! Today was the Lake Lowell Marathon, aka my second full marathon, aka the first full marathon I signed up for without having any buddies to run it with hence why I wasn't sure I'd live. I've been running fast all season so I was worried that'd I'd go out too quick and die after about 11 miles, but to my surprise I felt really, really good!

So the beginning of the race has a pretty good climb and there were quite a few ladies ahead of me going up it. I tried to size up who I'd thought wouldn't last. It took a lot of mental strength to hold myself as close to goal pace as I could and let them go. Sure enough I picked off the first one around mile 8ish. When I looked at the results I saw that I ended up 42 minutes ahead of her, so I was smart for running my race and not hers. The first part of the race I also had Zac Brown Band's "Chicken Fried" stuck in my head...sure enough, I ended up passing a guy who was blasting it through his iPod. Totally didn't help solve that problem!

At that point I could see Tiedji, who I consider a total bad ass, so I was nervous about whether I should've been running as fast as I was. I kept telling myself "you probably DON'T belong up here now, pull back, pull back" but I caught her around the Mile 12 aid station and actually ended up running a couple miles with her. I found out she and her hubby (Brian, who really is a badass) were doing 12 marathons in 12 months for 2012 and their last one was a few weeks ago. She was also sick and told me her cold medicine was drying her out. We had our eyes on the girl in pink ahead of us. She'd passed Tiedji during a potty break and she didn't think she could catch her unless that girl totally fell apart. By mile 16 I was like "I think we can get her." I was up to the challenge so pulled away after our aid station walk break.

I caught her around mile 18ish. From there everything was really spread out so I kept focusing on the whoever was actually in my line of vision ahead of me. I think I ended up picking off four different guys before the end. All of them were really nice and I ran with each of them for a bit. Overall I felt pretty fabulous until I got to mile 24, then it got painful on that hill! I knew Ryan A. was working the last aid station so I told myself "You're just on a run to go say hi to Ryan! You can hold it together until then!" Power of positive thinking. I was able to and he got a really great shot of me smiling and giving a thumbs up after I said "you don't know how happy I am to see you guys!"

At mile 25 I did my typical mantra for the last mile of any run. "Throw the hammer down and go." I had a great last mile and ended up shattering my PR by 10 minutes AND broke four hours AND was the third overall female. So overall it was a great day all around! Big props to Christie and Wayne who put the whole thing together! It was such a fun event and I'm glad I chose it as my spring marathon!

Splits:
1 8:43.5
2 9:32.6
3 8:32.3
4 8:51.0
5 8:53.3
6 8:45.9
7 8:43.3
8 8:39.8
9 8:44.8
10 8:40.8
11 8:38.5
12 8:34.3
13 8:50.7
14 8:53.2
15 8:47.4
16 8:48.7
17 8:56.5
18 8:32.6
19 8:40.0
20 9:02.2
21 8:50.2
22 8:44.7
23 8:34.4
24 8:46.9
25 9:18.9
26 8:23.4
27 2:02.2 (0.27)